ProgressiveMultiplier Fund

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Financing Revenue Generation for the Progressive Movement

DECADES OF EXPERIENCE. HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF REVENUE GENERATED.

After decades of collective experience raising funds, recruiting and retaining members, and experimenting with member benefits and new non-profit business models, the Progressive Multiplier Fund has launched a Center of Excellence to share best practices in revenue generation and two new funds: the The Test and Innovation Fund and The Growth Fund.

The Progressive Multiplier Fund (PMF) is a funding intermediary and best practice resource center that possesses a superior understanding of small donor fundraising, membership recruitment and retention, and member benefit programs; specializes in risk management for investing in such programs; and executes a unique, compliant approach to generate both 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) revenue.

Funding for Replicable Revenue Generation Programs

Grants, Recoverable Grants, and Loans

The Progressive Multiplier Fund offers multiple types of grants and loans to help progressive organizations test and scale their best revenue generation ideas. We recognize that our partners need flexibility, transparency, and efficiency in their funding partner and our programs are designed to deliver those. We focus on funding scalable and repeatable revenue generation programs through a set of standardized funding products so that you can focus on generating revenue and achieving your mission.

We invest in

Member / Donor Acquisition

Email

Direct Mail and Telemarketing

Social Media, Search and Online Marketing

Text Message and Mobile

Face to Face and Events

Member / Donor Retention

Donor / Member Journey

Multi-Channel Communication

Gateways & Payment Processing

Social Science Tests

Recapture Techniques

Benefits / Earned Revenue

Affinity Financial Services

Monetizing Core Strengths as Services

Clean Energy and Efficiency

Advertising or Other Revenue

Other or New, Innovative Benefits

The Progressive Multiplier Fund's Center of Excellence ensures that the progressive community as a whole benefits from the experiments and lessons learned from the PMF's investments. Through webinars, online portals, connecting experts with organizations, and a growing list of partnerships, the Progressive Multiplier Fund stays abreast of the latest innovations and shares its lessons learned with the progressive community.

Join community to gain access to helpful webinars, a library full of fundraising information, and a network of fellow progressive fundraisers.

The Test and Innovation Fund provides grants to non-profits interested in testing new revenue generation models, as well as testing the replication of revenue generation programs that have worked in other organizations. Grants range from $1,000 to $25,000, with an average grant size of $10,000. Successful revenue generating projects can be scaled up with funding through the PMF Growth Fund.

Proposals for funding through the Test and Innovation Fund are screened based on the likelihood that they will achieve a 2:1 return over five years. Additionally, PMF prioritizes funding programs that can be replicated for other groups and can likely be scaled up to earn at least $1 million of revenue.

Other criteria include (a) the project must focus on engaging individuals who can be members, consumers, or donors at a size under $1,000; (b) you have the right team and capacity (in-house or in-house with partners or vendors) to execute the program; (c) the PMF has the right to share lessons learned, techniques, overall results, and materials you used with ALL other progressive organizations; and (d) the project is not primarily focused on building technology. We only fund technology with grants if it is a small part of the experiment.

Quarterly 2019 deadlines are January 18, April 19, July 19, and October 18.

The Growth Fund is a valuable resource for organizations that wish to scale up existing revenue projects. By issuing recoverable grants to support 501(c)(3) programs and market rate loans to 501(c)(4) programs, this fund provides the resources progressive organizations need to greatly expand their revenue streams and have a greater impact.

In order to qualify for funding through the Growth Fund, fundraising projects must demonstrate that the program can make a 2:1 return over five years. Organizations applying for funding for an earned revenue program must provide documentation showing that the program currently generates at least 20% in net income per year.

Other criteria include (a) the project must focus on engaging individuals who can be members, consumers, or donors at a size under $1,000; (b) you have the right team and capacity (in-house or in-house with partners or vendors) to execute the program; (c) the PMF has the right to share lessons learned, techniques, overall results, and materials you used with ALL other progressive organizations; and (d) the project is not primarily focused on building technology. We only fund technology with grants if it is a small part of the project.

Quarterly 2019 deadlines are January 18, April 19, July 19, and October 18.

Philip Radford

Founder and President

Phil Radford is the founder and President of Progressive Power Lab, the Progressive Multiplier Fund, and Membership Drive. He has served as the youngest executive director of Greenpeace USA, co-founded the Democracy Initiative, was founder and executive director of Power Shift, and is a board member of the Mertz Gilmore Foundation and Climate Hawks Vote. He has a background in grassroots organizing, corporate social responsibility, climate change, and clean energy.

JEE KIM

Executive Director

Jee Kim is the Executive Director for the Narrative Initiative, a training and networking resource for leaders and organizations dedicated to building fairer, more inclusive societies. The Narrative Initiative develops the skills needed to align voices and strategies, shape media and public conversation, and broaden perspectives and possibilities.

For the past two decades, Jee has been a movement builder, resource mobilizer, and dot connector for social change. Prior to his leadership role at the Narrative Initiative, Jee led several initiatives on the Civic Engagement and Government team at the Ford Foundation. His work focused on increasing the political participation of under-represented constituencies and mobilizing the grassroots base for social change. Prior to Ford, Jee launched 18MillionRising.org, a national civic engagement project designed to build the political power of Asian Americans using social media and technology.

Jee has served as a program director at the Surdna Foundation, where he managed grant-making portfolios in youth engagement, post-Katrina New Orleans, and nonprofit infrastructure over his eight-year tenure. He also worked in New York as a racial justice and immigrant rights organizer and as a journalist, editing the 9/11 anthology Another World Is Possible and The Future 500, an analysis of youth activism in the United States.

WILLEM VAN RIJN

Management Consulting

Willem van Rijn possesses 40 years of management consulting and managerial experience working with global non-profits and corporations. With a collaborative, yet driving, management style, Willem is accomplished at business building and leadership in global financial institutions, consulting firms and NGOs. He has a proven analytical, business building and leadership track record with an emphasis on strategy formulation, financial risk management, organizational and operating management.

Willem worked for 4 years with PricewaterhouseCoopers consulting to Financial Institutions in Japan and acted as a Managing Partner at PwC in New York and Tokyo. Willem was also a Member of the Management Committee and Partner of Corporate Strategy at Capco and a Senior Vice President at Bank of America.

Willem is a committed environmentalist. Until his retirement, Willem was the Chief Operating Officer of Greenpeace International. He came to Greenpeace after his career in finance, increasingly concerned about Climate Change and determined to make a difference for his children, grandchildren, and the planet. He is also a Board Member of a leading think tank in Germany working for German and EU- governments in socio/economic policy towards a cleaner environment and a personal coach to many senior professionals in environmental NGOs.

SONAL SHAH

Economist and Entrepreneur

Sonal Shah is an economist and entrepreneur and has spent her career focused on economic policy and actionable innovation in the public and private sectors. She is a global leader on social innovation policy including impact investing, data and technology for social good, and civic engagement.

Sonal started her career as an international economist at the U.S. Department of Treasury where she was the director of the office covering sub-Saharan Africa, worked in Bosnia and Kosovo after the war, and served as the senior adviser to the Under Secretary at the Department of Treasury during the Asian financial crisis. She was vice president at Goldman, Sachs and Co. and developed and implemented its environmental strategy. She has also served as the Associate Director for Economic and National Security Policy at the Center for American Progress.

She served as Deputy Assistant to the President for President Obama and founded the White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation. She served on President Obama’s transition board leading the Technology, Innovation and Government Reform group.

One of Sonal’s most proud accomplishments is working with her siblings to create a non-profit, Indicorps, to build a new generation of socially conscious global leaders. She serves on the board of the Case Foundation, Oxfam America, Non Profit Finance Fund, Urban Alliance, and The Century Foundation. She also serves as an adviser to the Democracy Fund.

JIGAR SHAH

Co-Founder

Jigar Shah is the Co-Founder of Generate Capital, a specialty finance company that builds, owns, operates, and finances infrastructure assets involving the world’s critical resources: energy, water, agriculture and basic materials. Generate Capital’s type of financing — “infrastructure as a service” — has its roots in the solar-as-a-service funding model, which Shah pioneered as the founder and CEO of SunEdison and unlocked a multi-billion-dollar solar market, creating the largest solar services company worldwide.

In 2009, Jigar joined Richard Branson to be the first CEO of the Carbon War Room, a global non-profit commitment to supporting global entrepreneurs scale their climate solutions. Carbon War Room believes that entrepreneurial spirit solves many of the world’s seemingly intractable problems, and the problems of climate change will be no exception. Based on that experience, he authored Creating Climate Wealth: Unlocking the Impact Economy.

Shah believes that business model innovation will have an outsized impact on bringing about the next productivity revolution.

DEEPAK BHARGAVA

Executive Director

Deepak Bhargava is President of the Center for Community Change, a social justice organization that empowers low-income and people of color to build social movements to improve their lives.

Since joining the Center for Community Change, Deepak has stewarded the organization’s pioneering work to support and grow the immigrant rights movement including the successful campaign to achieve major executive action. During his tenure, the organization has also helped its partner organizations strengthen their leadership and civic engagement capacity, and contributed to significant policy change in areas such as healthcare, retirement security, affordable housing, improved refundable tax credits for low-income families, and access to good family-sustaining jobs.

Deepak emigrated to the US from India as a child, grew up in the Bronx (go Yankees!) and currently resides in New York City with his partner Harry Hanbury.

JENNIE THOMPSON

Recognized Speaker

A recognized speaker, teacher and author, Jennie Thompson has been active in the progressive community for decades. Throughout her career, she has guided the fundraising efforts for many of the largest membership organizations in the United States. She is a frequent presenter and trainer on fundraising, organizational development, and communications strategies affecting the non-profit sector.

Jennie was a founder and Managing Director of Craver, Mathews, Smith & Company, (CMS), the progressive fundraising and membership development agency in Washington, DC. For twenty years, Jennie guided CMS’s pioneering work in using direct response media to raise money to effect social and political change. In 1995, she became an independent consultant to do more work in the international non-profit community and works with an array of international and US non-profit organizations. She was recently the Managing Director of Development for Planned Parenthood Federation of American (PPFA)’s Development Division in New York. Jennie has been a consultant and advisor to PPFA for more than 30 years.

Jennie is Past-Chair of the Board of Directors of the Resource Alliance (1997-2000) and was re-elected to the Board in 2009. She has served as a volunteer Board member of the Association of Direct Response Fundraising Counsel (ADRFCo) in the United States, and a member of the Ethics Committee of the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP). Jennie has also served on the Board of Trustees of Action Aid International-US, a leading international development charity, based in Johannesburg, South Africa.

JAMES RUCKER

Co-founder of Citizen Engagement Lab (CEL)

James Rucker is the co-founder of Citizen Engagement Lab (CEL), an incubator focused on the creation and support of online organizations designed to empower underrepresented and organized communities to create political and social change. CEL is a home for social entrepreneurs and a launching pad for innovative ideas and people powered projects that seek to change the world by leveraging the power of the internet. Since then, CEL has worked with dozens of startups, entrepreneurs, and philanthropic partners to expand the impact and reach of people powered change. James stated “I’m so proud of what CEL has accomplished. It’s become critical infrastructure for supporting social entrepreneurs and organizations seeking to empower communities, which was our goal from the start. Its purpose and mission is more relevant now than ever.”

He is also chairman and co-founder of ColorOfChange.org, the largest online advocacy community focused on the concerns of Black Americans. The organization was founded by Rucker and Van Jones in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and helped to raise awareness for the cause of the Jena Six. Color of Change has more than 800,000 members and has helped launch many projects in that vein such as Presente.org (the largest Latino advocacy community in the country), the Secretary of State Project (an effort to elect progressive Secretaries of State), and Video the Vote (a citizen-journalism project that enables voters to monitor voter disenfranchisement).

James started his work in advocacy as the Director of Grassroots Mobilization for MoveOn.org, which followed a decade starting and supporting software startups.

DEBORAH ASHFORD

Recognized Speaker

In the past 35 years, Deborah secured federal tax-exempt status for hundreds of nonprofit organizations, and has represented thousands on specific projects. In her role as general counsel to charitable, professional, and trade organizations, she attends 25 to 30 board of director meetings a year. In that capacity, she has provided legal and practical advice to the board member CEOs of numerous large companies on sensitive legal and organizational issues. With her tax and corporate know-how in the nonprofit arena and her practical experience, Deborah has board members and nonprofit managers seeking her input on all aspects of running a successful organization.

Deborah has represented the presidents of three countries in establishing U.S. charitable organizations. In 1995, President Clinton appointed Deborah as the U.S. nominee to serve as a judge on the United Nations (UN) Administrative Tribunal. The General Assembly then elected her to the position and re-elected her in 1999 to serve a second term.

Deborah is passionately committed to assuring that small organizations have access to quality pro bono legal services. Annually, she advises numerous pro bono clients on tax and corporate matters.

Prior to law school, Deborah had several U.S. government positions, including in the Office for Civil Rights and the Office of Education (U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare) and served as assistant director of the Women Studies Program at the University of Alabama.

KEITH MESTRICH

President and Chief Executive Officer

Keith Mestrich is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Amalgamated Bank. The bank, a uniquely progressive institution headquartered in New York City with 14 branches in the metropolitan area, has $4 billion in commercial assets and operates a Trust and Investment Management business with over $40 billion of assets under management.

Keith brings with him 25 years of experience working with the bank's core constituencies in the labor movement, non-profit advocacy groups, progressive philanthropy, and political organizations. Keith joined Amalgamated in June of 2012 and directed the bank's Washington Region and the bank's operations.

Keith is a 25-year veteran of the labor movement, beginning his career as a researcher at the AFL-CIO where he gained experience assisting unions on hundreds of organizing, bargaining and political campaigns. In 2002, Keith went to work for UNITE, the bank's majority shareholder, where he served in various capacities including Director of Corporate Affairs, President of one of the union's locals and Executive Assistant to the International President. Following the formation of Worker's United, Keith was named the new union's first Chief of Staff.

Keith is a Fellow of the inaugural class of the Finance Leaders Fellowship Program and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of The Roosevelt Institute, Democracy Alliance, Progressive Congress, Sidney Hillman Foundation, Capital and Main, The Workers Lab, Working America Education Fund, The Public Utility Law Project, Hot Bread Kitchen and the Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition. He serves on the Advisory Boards of Girls Who Invest and The Patriotic Millionaires, is a Trustee on the Consolidated Retirement Fund, and was recently named one of Washington Life Magazine’s “Power 100” top influencers.”

Linda Wood

Advisor

Linda oversees the Haas Leadership Initiatives, which is the Fund’s effort to help social-sector leaders develop skills and grow their networks so they can be more successful and oversees its grantmaking and grants management.

After joining the Fund in 2003, Linda designed and built the Flexible Leadership Awards (FLA) program, which provides funding and other support to help the senior leaders of the Fund’s grantees strengthen their leadership so their organizations can achieve stronger results. Since the launch of the program, Linda has overseen the expansion of the Haas Leadership Initiative as it pioneered a range of new approaches to leadership development in areas from coaching to executive transitions to fund development.

Prior to joining the Fund, Linda advised senior leaders on strategy, organizational performance and change management at Cap Gemini Ernst & Young. She began her career in Chicago, where she ran programs in youth development and the arts.

Linda is a graduate of the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana and holds a master’s in business administration from U.C. Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.

AL D'ALESSANDRO

Advisor

Albert D’Alessandro has thirty-five years of experience in the banking industry, primarily in commercial lending. A graduate of the University of Notre Dame with a Bachelor of Finance and of Pace University with an MBA in Management, he started his banking career at Mellon Bank in Pittsburgh, PA. He is currently the President of Financial Solutions, LLC which provides financial advisory services such as sourcing and negotiating bank financings, installing financial controls and budgeting processes, restructuring debt, and strategic planning to businesses, non-profits, and high net worth individuals.

He was a member of the senior management teams that built and then sold two Washington, DC community banks to larger banking institutions. Albert served as Executive Vice President in charge of all commercial banking at D.C. National Bank until its sale to Sovran Bank. The management team then assumed control of Franklin National Bank in 1991 where he served as Executive Vice President in charge of all commercial banking. During that time, they raised over fifteen million dollars in capital and built it from forty million in assets to one billion prior to its sale to BB&T. Both institutions were community banks that exclusively served the local small business community, real estate developers, and non-profits, as well as high net worth investors. These banks also developed a specialty in banking and lending to political organizations and candidates for national office.

Albert previously served on the board of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Washington as well as many other civic and charitable organizations. Until recently, he chaired the Advisory Board of Eagle Bank, the largest locally owned bank in the Washington Metropolitan Region. He currently serves on the boards of several closely-held firms.

Sandy Lawrence

Director of Operations

Sandy Lawrence is the Director of Operations at Progressive Multiplier Fund. She brings 14 years of operations and project management experience in the progressive nonprofit world to the PMF. She’s worked domestically at the Sierra Club and Greenpeace USA, as well as internationally at Aflatoun, Child Social and Financial Education, and brings a strong foundation of community organizing and planning process from her urban planning days in New York City.

The Senior Program Officer will lead the work grant selection process, track and publicize best practices in non-profit revenue generation, manage marketing efforts for the PMF, and manage relationships with grantees....

A six month study demonstrated that a critical mass of progressive organizations are ready, willing, and able to launch fundraising innovation tests and to scale up, but need the financing to do so....